Towards community guidelines for best practices in age model assessment and data processing

A fundamental task in stratigraphy is to understand how observations in the depth-domain translate to geological age. Initial depth-to-age conversions typically rely on stratigraphic control points (tie-points) with numerical ages, either via directly dating volcanic ash-layers or via identifying other geological events, such as magnetic reversals, first/last occurrences of fossils, or isotopic excursions, that have been calibrated to numerical time through correlation with radioisotopic dating or astrochronological methods. How the associated observational and calibration uncertainties are accommodated and propagated in the construction of age-depth models, largely depends on the statistical approaches used. Establishing accurate age-depth models is a multidisciplinary effort upon which many disciplines across the Earth Sciences depend. It is also an evolving science and therefore the critical evaluation of published age models (chronologies) should be a straightforward and routine step for anyone studying Earth’s history. As part of the Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences (TIMES) community initiative, the members of Working Group 9 (Age Model Assessment and Data Processing) aim to review best practices and develop guidelines for standardized, reproducible, and community-driven approaches for constructing and assessing age models. A key need is improving the reproducibility, accuracy, and transparency of comparisons among marine and terrestrial sediment archives, as well as across different biogeographical regions. Important steps towards this goal, in line with the FAIR principles, include:

• Establishing standardized approaches for reporting, propagating, and visualizing age-depth model uncertainty across different stratigraphic datasets, making data, metadata, and methodologies findable and accessible to the broader scientific community.
• Defining clear protocols for consistent storage of original age-depth model data, including uncertainties and associated metadata, so that datasets are interoperable across different platforms and disciplines, and can be reused effectively.
• Providing transparent documentation of workflows for age-depth model construction, to promote critical assessment and reproducibility of published chronologies, and to ensure that workflows are accessible for reuse in future research efforts.

At the meeting, we will present these objectives in detail and extend the invitation to join WG9.